Approaches to Business Incubation: A Comparative Study of the United States, China and Brazil (original) (raw)
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Business incubation in Brazil: Creating an environment for new ventures
Enterprise Development and Microfinance, 2009
Business incubators, by providing timely help and support to new ventures, hold the potential to create and develop entrepreneurial talent at the micro-level and foster an environment for entrepreneurship at the macro level. Today, with approximately 400 incubators and a well-developed incubation ecosystem, Brazil leads one of the most successful incubation movements in Latin America, through innovation and adaptation of incubator models to suit indigenous needs. Brazilian incubation is very much a bottom up process with the university acting as a key catalyst and facilitator. Even though incubation as a business creation tool has not gained widespread currency, multiple levels of government and a rainbow coalition of partners from various spheres appear to be involved in supporting incubators. The government has clearly made incubators a policy priority as witnessed by the various initiatives to support incubators and incubatees alike. The emphasis in Brazil appears to be more on the "softer" services such as networking relative to the provision of physical space and hard infrastructure. In this sense, incubators in Brazil are indeed transitioning to the newer approaches to incubation that relies less on the hardware of incubation and more on the software of value adding services.
The Effect of Business Incubation in Developing Countries
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The aim of this paper is to review the literature and show the strength and weakness of business incubation in developing countries. This p aper is based on a wide literature review, focused on the identification of the incubators as tool for economic development. We found that 1) business incubators provide support for start-up companies, 2) graduated companies tend to have a greater probability of success and 3) graduated companies ha significant positive impact on economic development. These findings can help policy makers, governments, and practitioners with their implementation in incubator programs, leading to be tter planning and a greater chance of success. This paper contributes to enhance the understanding of the strategic implementation of incubator models in developing countries and provides useful information to both academicians and practitioners who are interested in incubator progr ams.
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Journal of Economics and Sustainable Development, 2013
The purpose of this paper is to describe and compare key dimension of the business incubation landscape in the United States. The comparison will focused on the five key dimensions which include incubators services provided by incubators to client firms, strategic goals, incubators' sponsors, incubators age and incubators focus. The nature of this research is mainly qualitative. This investigation uses two semi-structured interviews based in the United States and organizational documents. The research findings suggest that there are three keys. The authors believe that, this paper presents an added value to the current literature on the key dimension of business incubation in the United States. Also the research will support the academia and practitioner for successful implementations and follow-up.
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This paper reports, explores and investigates on the initiatives whereby incubators were used to stimulate the economy. Initially the study pursued the role of business incubator organisations and their impacts on the economic developments in the United States of America and the benefits in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states. Incubation programs support diversify economies, commercialise technologies, create jobs and build wealth. According to the National Business Incubation Association (NBIA), business incubators help entrepreneurs translate their ideas into workable and sustainable businesses by guiding them from the beginning to being able to achieve a growing and thriving business. Business incubation provides entrepreneurs with expertise, networks and tools that they need to make their ventures successful. This paper provides evidence which based on current literature concerning business incubators as an effective and innovative tool of economic developments. The research methodologies adopted in this research study are desk-research and case study of 5 incubator organisations in the GCC member states. However, the paper provides guidance, suggestions and recommendations to change the adoption of such programmes in order to stimulate the economic development cycles in the GCC member states.
The Evolution of Business Incubation
2005
The genesis, development, and proliferation of business incubators are well documented. However, fundamental questions pertaining to their origins and evolution as the dominant organizational form for promoting institutional entrepreneurship and stimulating new business formation have not been posed. The origins and evolution of business incubators, as a collectivity, were traced to the presence and emergence of a range of discontinuities in multiple and diverse environments which threatened the social, economic, and financial security of communities and generated tremendous opportunities simultaneously. Consequently, perceptions and interpretations of the meaning and significance of these discontinuities among institutional stakeholders led to the strategic and instrumental deployment of business incubators as a tool to leverage or stabilize emergent discontinuities in the environment.
Journal of technology management & innovation, 2016
This study compared university affiliated and non-university affiliated business incubators in the United States and Brazil in order to assess the impacts of country context and affiliation on incubator funding sources, direct financial assistance to client firms and internal versus external service mix through use of quantitative and qualitative data. Affiliations with external entities can provide life giving resources; however, it may also transfer external shocks to the new venture calling for buffers. Results indicated that incubators in the United States have a higher number of funding sources, are more likely to provide direct financial support, and offer more external services relative to Brazilian incubators; whereas Brazilian incubators are more inclined to connect incubatees to external financial resources but provide services in-house. The study results suggested that incubators in both countries use "bridges" and "buffers" to ameliorate resource deficits driven by environmental exigencies.
International Journal of Innovation, 2016
This paper examines the experience of business incubation as an innovative developmental instrument based on the recent experience of the South American countries of Brazil and Chile and the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. A qualitative research method was adopted involving a review of published reports, journal articles and relevant case studies; and face-to-face semi-structured interviews with incubator managerial staff. The major findings are that there are great similarities among the incubators studied in terms of their links to universities, services offered, and funding challenges, but there is growing acceptance of incubation as a potentially valid tool for promoting business development and innovation although most incubators are at the early stage. The paper is original because the case study application to incubation in Trinidad and Tobago is new with only one related article published, and this study therefore adds value to the body of research because business incubation has been under-researched in the study area. The research is limited to the extent that the case study focuses on a comparison of selected incubator features and did not include the views of clients. The practical implications of this study is that sponsors of incubators and managers need to obtain a deeper understanding of the incubation ecosystem especially with regard to innovation-based incubators, if successful innovative businesses are to emerge. The results of the study can also be generalized over the small island developing states of the Caribbean.
Brazil: Measuring the Constructs of the Business Incubation Process
2012
With various gaps remaining in business incubation literature, developing scales that capture the multi-dimensional constructs of the incubation process remains a necessity. While living and traveling within Brazil, this author journeyed within Brazil's well-developed incubation ecosystem in order to investigate the reproducibility and validity of scales whose authors propose measure the constructs that capture the process of business incubation which were defined in their options-driven theory of business incubation as "selection performance", "monitoring and business assistance intensity", and "resource munificence". Regression analysis resulted in the data suggesting that there is no statistically significant predictive ability of the Hackett and Dilts scales when used to predict incubatee outcomes from this study's sample of incubators. The results of the analysis between total score in each of the three constructs and incubatee outcomes suggested that when the total score within the construct of selection performance increases, there tends to be a decrease in incubatee outcomes where the incubatee was surviving and growing profitably at the time of its exit from the incubator. Also, there tends to be a decrease in incubatee outcomes where the incubatee was surviving and growing on a path toward profitability at the time of the incubator exit. The results show no predictive ability of the remaining two constructs of "monitoring and business assistance